Mairis Briedis announces his retirement

A sad, sad day for boxing, on his day he could’ve beaten anyone, underachiever in the sense of legacy, mostly not his own doing, mainly because of the division around outside of Usyk, it wasn’t the strongest, but by the eye test Briedis was immaculate, one of the most flawless boxers I’ve ever seen grace the ring, from the way he set up his punches, to his footwork, to his defence, just not one glaring weakness in sight, probably the best fighter in history in terms of his skills against southpaws, 100% comfortable against them, not thrown off by the different angles, could snap out that lead left hand, feint up and down, set up counters, and he didn’t fall into the southpaw straight left counter the way others do, most will walk into it because they’re not used to the angle and they misjudge the distance, not Briedis, he always knew where he was in the ring against southpaws, kept his head off centre line, he could subtly shift and edge his way in then fire off that lead right and lead left uppercuts against them and create angles after getting them to tuck up, he really could adapt the any style, he could use the jab, walk fighters onto punches, get them to commit so he could counter, imo he’s the most complete fighter in boxing history, I genuinely believe skill wise he was better than Usyk, he could create angle just as well as Usyk, was faster of hand, more powerful, could set punches and opportunities just as well, could counter just as well, but for my money, had a better defence, didn’t need to tuck up as much, could tap upstairs and shoot the right to the southpaw body, or could get low and come over the top, he was great at creating deceptions, if he was the same height as Usyk, he’d have beat him, he had everything Usyk had, but was quicker, more powerful and explosive and had a better defence, he could use head movement better, whereas Usyk often relies on the earmuffs a bit more, Briedis had to close the distance against Usyk being the shorter man which gave Usyk more opportunities on the outside, even then Briedis was 50/50 type competitive, that fight could’ve gone either way as it was.
One of the greatest tragedies in boxing is the Briedis didn’t move up to heavyweight, he had all of the tools to compete, if you’re a Crusierweight moving up, you have to be able to have great deception, move around, feint, get low, force their errors and counter, if you’re a shorter lighter man fighting a taller heavier man that is, which you will have to do, Briedis had all of those thing, he’d have beat Joshua, Wilder, Whyte, Ruiz, all of them, only close one is Fury and obviously Usyk as we already seen it, and that was prime Usyk, I believe we’d be talking about him in the same sentence as the Holyfield, Holmes, Klitschkos had he moved up, he really was that skilled.

 

He never could get the fights at heavy. He started there, and moved to cruiser because no one would fight him. After he lost to Jai, he called out Chisora, and Chisora said no.